Mastering the Art 2: Modigliani

This exclusive ten-part Sky Arts series follows notorious art forger John Myatt, the man who was involved in what Scotland Yard called the biggest art fraud of the 20th Century, around the UK as he teaches aspiring artists how to paint in the style of the world's greatest artists.

Myatt's stunning forgeries of Matisse, Chagall and Klee notoriously fooled the art world in the 1990s. After seven successful years of gulling the world's most prominent private collectors and art experts, Myatt was eventually caught and charged with deception in 1998. He served time in Brixton prison but his subsequent fame has enabled him to open a legitimate Genuine Fake business where his replica paintings now sell for thousands of pounds and fine art publishers Washington Green have exhibited his work on a national tour. So high is the level of interest in his life story that Clive Owen is rumoured to play him in a forthcoming British film called what else? Genuine Fake.

In this revealing series, Myatt reveals the tricks of the trade and stylistic insights which enabled him to emulate iconic paintings from world-renowned artists. From a Monet landscape to a Modigliani nude, Myatt provides his aspiring students with both the theory and technique to set up their easels and capture the composition of a street scene by Hopper or the brushstrokes of a still life by Cezanne. And he passes on the tricks of the trade too - rubbing soil onto canvas replicates Braque's finish for example, or that coffee ages a painting by a century or more.

Part 2: Amadeo Modigliani
Students:
Imogen Paton, an artist and clothes designer from London
Jamie Sinclair, an airbrush artist from Southampton
Yana Kessel, an amateur artist from London

In this episode, Myatt takes his students to the Sunbeam Studios in West London to emulate an artist who shocked the art world with his erotic take on the nude, Amadeo Modigliani.

John's three students are all talented artists in their own right, although this challenge has thrown one of them completely out of his comfort zone. Jamie Sinclair is an airbrush artist, often spraying directly onto motorbikes, but he is now faced with capturing a Modigliani nude on canvas - with a paintbrush.

It's one thing to paint the model you see in front of you, but it's another to grasp the eroticism of a Modiglinani. The worst case scenario is to end up with an unsexy painting and before long, John is worried that this is where his students are heading...

Back in the studio, John reveals a trade secret from his criminal past; a rather unorthodox way to create an authentic glaze on his forgeries - lubricating jelly...

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